A must read for givers | Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential (Civil...

An answer to those frustrated with government and traditional charity | Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential (Civil Society: Historical and ... | Dan Pallotta

books:


	• Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential (Civil Society: Historical and ... Dan Pallotta Tufts, 2008 - 340 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Nonprofit ideology is uncharitable

Dan Pallota's new book hits the nail on the head. The entire ideology that permeates the nonprofit sector - from the poor (nonprofit staff) helping the poor (clients), to donors' beliefs to which they, too, have been conditioned, is upside down and unsustainable. Everyone - nonprofit workers, donors, and the public alike - need to understand that nonprofit enterprise in the 21st century is a business. If it is to function effectively, nonprofits must have the resources to do so and the ability to pay "the best and brightest" to make the world a better place, rather than crippling nonprofits and keeping them so poor that they are incapable of doing so.

I haven't finished the book so I don't yet know what the author's solution will be. But regardless, the dysfunctional way in which nonprofit enterprise is presently funded must change so that pay levels are competitive with for-profit enterprise and resources are predictable and sustainable, if we are to fulfill our diverse missions to heal and repair the world.

for more information click here

A must read for givers

This book has opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about charity and what needs to be done to make it more effective. This is a must read for anyone giving to charity or churches and for anyone involved in charitable work.

An answer to those frustrated with government and traditional charity

"Uncharitable" is a significant contribution to social welfare policy, particularly for those of us who know how inept the government can be at efficiently helping the disadvantaged (see healthcare reform), but also acknowledge how traditional charity lacks the tools for bringing about major change. My only gripe is that Pallotta's anti-religion overtones were misplaced. Perhaps because I studied philosophy I paid more attention to this part of the book than I should've, but his views about how all charity really is self-interested reveal an understanding of philosophy and theology that seriously trails his business acumen. I can desire more robust social enterprise without adopting the pseudo-morality of Ayn Rand. The book probably would've been half as long and just as useful if he'd kept his preachiness to a minimum.

Putting that aside, I hope that Pallotta's pragmatic ideas will reverberate up to the policy-making level, so that we can see the marriage of capitalism and non-profits produce serious results. Any system for alleviating suffering, Pallotta's included, will rely on caring, loving people motivated by something other than their own self-interest. But that doesn't mean that we should completely exclude the tools of capitalism, when it will clearly magnify the amount of suffering that we are able to reduce. That is, after all, the goal.

for more information click here

Count me "in" on the plan to rock the nonprofit world

If Dan Pallotta means what he says in his final pages of his book, Uncharitable, then all I can say is that I am "in" on his plan to rock the nonprofit world. My final thought as I closed the book was that Dan and I might be dialed into different radio stations but they are both advocating the same ultimate goal.

For the last few years, my thought has been that the Baby Boomer Generation may be "the" group that will push for transparency in the nonprofit industry at a rate that will outstrip the abilities of most organizations to keep up and the growth of charitable intermediaries such as what Dan Pallotta suggests in the final pages of his book might spring up.

Reading Guidance

There were many things I really liked about what Pallotta had to say but I found that this was confined to a few key areas of the book and the many other pages were dense and academic reading that didn't significantly add to my ability to bring about any great changes in my world.

As a result, I am providing slow readers and non-academics like myself with options for reading that they may find more palatable:

Slow Readers Version

1. Read the Introduction
2. Read Chapter 1
3. Read Chapter 2 through to the "First Error"
5. Reading the PallottaTeamWorks Case Study is optional

I Hate to Read Version

1. Read the Introduction
2. End of Chapter 3 (Summary on to the end of the chapter)

Although the book was dense, it did cause me to do some heavy-duty thinking throughout and, although I disagreed with a few of Pallotta's suggestions based on viability issues, in the end, I was delighted to see that he and I share a vision of creating a new entity in the nonprofit world that sends individuals passionate about nonprofit work into the workplaces of charities to examine how they are working, what they are doing, and how effective they are at what they are doing, in order to help others determine to which charitable endeavors they will "invest" their money.

Thanks so much for the read, Pallotta. I look forward to seeing whether I can be a part of your next endeavor - especially if it includes implementation!

for more information click here

Paradigm-busting spotlight on nonprofit ideology

If you are a charitable donor who has counted on evaluating non-profits based on "efficiency" ratings and seals of approval...if you are a non-profit employee banging your head against a "free" donated computer that doesn't do what you need it to do...if you are a non-profit executive wondering whether you are making the best use of your skills, earning $42,000 a year and thinking you'd do more good for the world by getting a better-paying job and then donating much more to charity...you need to read "Uncharitable."

Dan Pallotta smashes the American non-profit paradigm, taking us all the way back to the Puritans, who segregated benevolent charity from the evil world of profit. Charity was their atonement for their commercial activities, therefore charity had to be based on deprivation and a denial of self-interest. [For more on the loud echoes of the Puritan experience in the U. S., I recommend Susan Faludi's provocative work, The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America]

Pallotta argues that 400 years later, this core serves the non-profit world very poorly indeed, and that charities will flourish only when they are granted access to the tools of capitalism: a for-profit structure and compensation philosophy; paid advertising; brand building; ability to invest in infrastructure; and an ability to take risks to generate rewards or grow the cause.

"Uncharitable" is an important book. It's exhaustively researched, which is necessary to balance the fact that Pallotta has a personal axe to grind, since his for-profit fundraising company was driven out of business because ultimately, the traditional world of charity rejected of his business model, no matter how much money he brought in for good causes. The case study of his business, Pallotta TeamWorks, which ran three-day breast cancer walks and AIDS fundraising rides, is very interesting, told from his point of view.

I am giving "Uncharitable" four stars rather than five for two main reasons. First, the book was often very repetitive and thus a slog to get through even though I was very interested in the subject. And finally, with the world of capitalist finance in absolute collapse right now, one wonders how far charity could get off track by following their practices. Pallotta's new methods would have to be backed up by rigorous accountability, which he does argue for. Still, seeing his table saying that the CEO of Lehman Brothers makes $120 million creates only revulsion and mistrust, now that we know that so many castles were built on sand--irresponsibility, mismanagement, and in some cases, outright fraud.

Nonetheless, as someone who is involved in many non-profits, I applaud Dan Pallotta's challenge to take a fresh look at the non-profit model (currently, even the name is defined by what it is NOT) and re-examine our underlying assumptions.

for more information click here

Uncharitable goes where no other book on the nonprofit sector has dared to tread. Where other texts suggest ways to optimize performance inside the existing paradigm, Uncharitable suggests that the paradigm itself is the problem and calls into question our fundamental canons about charity. Author Dan Pallotta argues that society's nonprofit ethic acts as a strict regulatory mechanism on the natural economic law. It creates an economic apartheid that denies the nonprofit sector critical tools and permissions that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint (e.g., no risk-reward incentives, no profit, counterproductive limits on compensation, and moral objections to the use of donated dollars for anything other than program expenditures).

These double-standards place the nonprofit sector at extreme disadvantage to the for profit sector on every level. While the for profit sector is permitted to use all the tools of capitalism to advance the sale of consumer goods, the nonprofit sector is prohibited from using any of them to fight hunger or disease. Capitalism is blamed for creating the inequities in our society, but charity is prohibited from using the tools of capitalism to rectify them.

Ironically, this is all done in the name of charity, but it is a charity whose principal benefit flows to the for-profit sector and one that denies the nonprofit sector the tools and incentives that have built virtually everything of value in society. The very ethic we have cherished as the hallmark of our compassion is in fact what undermines it.

This irrational system, Pallotta explains, has its roots in 400-year-old Puritan ethics that banished self-interest from the realm of charity. The ideology is policed today by watchdog agencies and the use of "efficiency" measures, which Pallotta argues are flawed, unjust, and should be abandoned. By declaring our independence from these obsolete ideas, Pallotta theorizes, we can dramatically accelerate progress on the most urgent social issues of our time. Pallotta has written an important, provocative, timely, and accessible book--a manifesto about equal economic rights for charity. Its greatest contribution may be to awaken society to the fact that they were so unequal in the first place.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

hot